I love using Google Forms for my homework. It allows me to manage the results in a Sheet. I have it all organized on my website for my students. The advantage of this is that my students don’t need to login to Google – like they would have to do for Google Classroom. With some of my students, Sites is the better option. Here’s how I do it:
Change Classroom Theme
I like to have a theme that matches my classroom. For example, my Math Classroom has a chalkboard with numbers and equations. An added bonus to using Google Classroom is that it finds complimentary background colors for me. Changing the theme is simple:
Google Sites: Delete Logo
Many districts automatically have their logo attached to header on Google Sites. Deleting the Logo is an easy process.
Too Much PD?
Is there such a thing as too much PD?
This is something that I have been contemplating. The past few years my district has had teachers participate in weekly PD. In the beginning, this was welcome as not only did we want it, we felt that we needed it. However this current year, I am beginning to ask if there really is too much of a good thing.
How much is too much?
Each week I am asked to participate in 90 minutes ‘collaboration’ time. To me, collaboration is organic, exciting, desired, and teacher-driven. However, when teachers are told what to do, what to discuss, and have someone watching/listening it begins to feel less like collaboration and more like a mandatory meeting. And no one likes long meetings. Then there are the 2.5-hour meetings/PD each month, plus 1.5-hours meetings/PD each month, AND 1/2 hour meetings/PD TWICE per month. This makes a grand total of 12.5 hours of meeting/PD per month. No wait, I forgot the 1.5 hours per month of math PD. So that makes 14 hours of meeting/PD per month. And none of it is teacher-driven.
So what’s the result?
Before I sat down to figure all this out, I had no idea I was getting this much each month. Some of this comes at the expense of face-time with students – a grand total of 8 hours during the regular school day. Times that by the 9 months this occurs, that’s 72 HOURS of lost face-time with my students. Wow!
In addition to the lost face-time, I fear that we are beginning to experience overload. I fear that many teachers have begun tuning out some of the good messages and practices that are being shared. I know I have. Many teachers have begun to dread the monthly 2.5-hour meeting/PD. I don’t find the math PD useful. In fact, watching an hour lesson in which the students FINALLY get to talk after 33 minutes is a bit much, even for me (I love math!). And their actual interaction with other students lasts less than 8 min in that hour.
When can I put it into practice?
If I am missing 8 hours with my students – this doesn’t include the 3 hours that my class must attend First Tee each month – when can I put what I’m learning into practice? I’m honestly not sure. I sure hope I get to do so soon.
What to do?
Honestly, I’m not sure. In and of themselves, each item is worthy. Combined, it’s proving to be a deadly combination. I am hoping that my district reevaluates some of this. Honestly, I think the monthly 2.5-hour meeting/PD needs to go. Remember sitting in those 3-hour classes in college and you were done after about an hour. Yeah, these give you that same feeling. I’m also hoping that the district asks the teachers which ones they find most valuable. Sticking with the top 2 will result in better teaching practices.
CSDC 2015 Literacy Shed
They Asked The Questions
Recently I wrote about jazzing up Math class. I was going to have them use real world situations to make the learning more relevant. After writing Ugh, Math, John Stevens suggested having the students come up with the questions. The idea being that they will come up with better questions than I could.
We looked at different candies. Here were some of their questions:
- How many of each candy are there?
- How much protein in each candy?
- How much calcium in all the candies?
- How much does the bag weigh?
There were some pretty great questions that would require a lot of math. We started working out how much the entire bag weighs. We are basing it on the weight of the candy.
John was right, the questions were better and I had instant buy-in to boot! I will definitely be doing more of this.
Ugh, Math
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Math. To me, it’s like a puzzle and I like puzzles. However, that is not the case for many. Most of the time, it’s dry, boring, and disconnected from everyday life – at least that’s how the publishers present it. Which is yet another reason I hate publishers – come on, put some effort into your lessons. Less snazzy pictures – which there really aren’t that many – and more snazzy lessons!
This week I introduced long division to my 5th graders – you all groaned on that one didn’t you? Yeah, not the most interesting Math concept. It’s mostly procedural and very dry. And the publishers… a list of division problems to work out. BORING! Then there are the word problems:
A candy factory produces 9,876 pounds of chocolate in 24 hours. How many pounds to they produce in 1 hour?
Even the person who loves Math, like me, is thinking, “Who cares?” I mean really unless I’m the production manager, I couldn’t care less.
Fortunately, I have been inspired by the likes of La Cucina Matematica (John Stevens and Matt Vaudry) and Andrew Stadel (Estimation 180). They make Math relevant and fun. This is what I want for my students. And coming up with examples of how division can be relevant to my students isn’t THAT hard.
So what am I doing tomorrow in Math? Working with a bag of Halloween Candy. Amazingly, I still have some hanging around the house. Now, I can’t actually bring in a whole bag – which would totally be better (maybe I’ll swing by the store and see what’s on sale); they could manipulate the pieces. But… I sort of ate an embarrassing amount of the bag. Banana Laffy Taffy is a weakness of mine. So I did the next best thing, took a picture of the Nutritional Label – which I didn’t really read based on my consumption of said contents.
That means I can eat 4 pieces of my beloved Banana Laffy Taffy, and that is 1 serving (nice to know). So in a bag of 200 pieces how many are Laffy Taffy? Of that, how many servings of Laffy Taffy are there? It is also important to note that there are 2 flavors of Laffy Taffy. So you can further break it down and figure out roughly how many servings of Banana Laffy Taffy I ate. We could go on to find out how many servings of the candy are in the bag, or how many calories are in 1 Laffy Taffy. We could take the total number of pieces and split them up among all of us.
Is this the most innovative lesson ever? Not even close. Is it better than the dreaded publishers’ nonsense? Absolutely. Lessons like this could go on with items such as Hot Cheetos, chips, Taquis, and anything else the kids are into. I also get to sneak in lessons about serving size and portions.
Math Reasoning & App Smashing
While at Fall CUE a few weeks ago, I learned about Which One Doesn’t Belong from Nancy MInicozzi. The beauty of Which One Doesn’t Belong is that depending on your perspective any of the 4 choices is correct. This has been wildly popular with my students. They feel successful because of the low risk.
Given the above choices and Padlet, my students are required to defend their answer. Recently, one of my students began experimenting with the options on Padlet. She realized that she could embed a voice recording. The next day, she decided she didn’t like the sound of her voice, so typed her response in Voki, recorded the chosen voice, then embedded it on the Padlet. Now the rest of the class wants to learn how to do it. However, she is a bit devious. She refuses to help them because she wants them to figure it out on their own. I also suspect that she likes the fact that she is the only person who knows how to do it. I love when they try to outdo each other. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next!
Harness The Power
Last night there were a series of hurried texts between a group of friends and myself. At first, I was going to ignore them. It was, after all, almost 10 pm – way past my bedtime! Then curiosity got the better of me, and boy am I glad it did. A friend who teaches at another site within my district was telling the rest of us that school was cancelled for today, because of bomb threats at one of the campuses. Before long, I was communicating with my site administrator who asked me to post the information on our school’s Facebook page.
How do we get our information?
When I first heard the news, guess where I went first? The district’s website? The local news station’s site? Facebook? You guessed it, Facebook. Isn’t that what most of us do?
Spreading the Word
The district was in the process of recording a message that would auto call all the parents. However, the system had already shut down for the night and the calls wouldn’t be made until morning. This is a problem.
Living in a small community such as mine, word travels fast. So by harnessing the power of social media, we were able to inform many, who in turn helped to spread the word, about the school closings. Within 16 hours, our post had been viewed by nearly 9,900 people. That’s almost the size of our town!
118 Shares! I have heard that some district administrators are not a fan of schools having a Facebook page. They feel that it puts them at risk of negative attention or criticism. While this is true, the risk is minimal. In the 3 to 4 years we’ve had ours, I can only recall 2 instances where someone was negative, and one of those the person had some misinformation (which we were able to clear up immediately).
I’m sure you would agree, this was an amazing way to harness the power of social media. On another note, the majority of our posts show students engaged in learning and having fun. If your school doesn’t have a Facebook Page, I think it’s a missed opportunity to connect with parents, students (depending on age), and your community.
Make It Memorable
This was one of the many inspirational things I got out of David Theriault’s keynote speech at Fall CUE 2015. At one point, he asked why we take pictures during holidays and birthday parties. Simply put, because they are memorable moments (Mr. Theriault describes it in his blog). This gave me the inspiration to have my students become photographers; asking them to photograph the memorable moments in the day. Then allowing them to post their favorite to my Instagram account (@Nowatechie). We’ve created our own hashtag (#msnsclass).
I want my class, and their 5th-grade year, to be memorable. It is my hope that we do 1 thing each day they will want to remember.
Nowa Techie 